Funeral for Diana's driver postponed

September 6, 1997
Web posted at: 9:10 p.m. EDT (0110 GMT)

LORIENT, France (CNN) -- The funeral services and burial of Henri Paul, driver of the car that crashed and killed Princess Diana, were postponed Saturday to allow for further medical tests on his body.

Some mourners in this port town in western France weren't aware of the change until they read of it from a single sheet of typing paper posted on the door of the church.

"The day and time are not yet known," said the note, hand-written in blue magic marker.

Paul's remains are being held as authorities conduct further tests to confirm if he was drunk at the time of the accident, a priest at the L'Orient church said on condition of anonymity.

Authorities suspect Paul may have been incapacitated by alcohol and thus caused the crash that killed him, Diana and Dodi Fayed.

Investigators first said Paul's blood contained 1.75 grams of alcohol per liter at the time of the accident. A second test registered 1.82, nearly four times the legal limit of 0.5.

Family members of Dodi Fayed -- Diana's companion who died with her in the crash -- have contested the test results, saying the blood may have been contaminated or otherwise mishandled.

Paul had worked for more than a decade at the Ritz, which is owned by Mohamed Al Fayed -- Dodi's father. Before that he was a member of the French air force.

Saturday morning, several groups arrived at the church for Paul's memorial service, only to turn away after reading the note that it had been canceled.

Friends in his hometown on the rugged Brittany coast defended him, saying that Paul was not a drinker.

"That's just the English papers trying to get somebody," said Philippe Proust, who operates a bowling alley that Paul used to visit on trips home. He knew Paul for more than 15 years.